FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT - PAGE 4

A sugar-import increase approved this week will help to prevent supply problems that shut down Domino Sugar Corp.'s Baltimore plant for about a dozen days last year, plant officials said yesterday.Domino executives blamed raw-sugar import restrictions and crop problems for supply shortages that closed the factory temporarily.Now that the Agriculture Department has raised the import ceiling by another 28 percent, the plant should be able to avoid interruptions, said Paul Mirsky, chairman of North American and Australian operations for Tate & Lyle, a British concern that owns Domino.

Federal investigators have uncovered far-reaching fraud and mismanagement in the Agriculture Department aid program that provides billions of dollars to farmers who suffer crop losses in disasters such as the Midwest floods of 1993 and Hurricane Andrew in 1992.Many farmers have collected excessive payments by inflating crop losses, misstating the acreage they planted or failing to harvest crops when market prices fell below the amount paid in disaster assistance, according to sweeping new reports by the Agriculture Department and Senate investigators.

The darlings of the dinner plate -- baby corn and carrots -- are soon to be joined by tiny garbanzo beans and heads of iceberg lettuce.A tennis-ball-sized head of lettuce was produced by plant geneticist Edward Ryder and plant physiologist William Waycott at the agriculture department laboratory in California.Mr. Ryder calls it the perfect produce for singles, and it should be on the market by 1993.Meanwhile, scientists in Oregon, Idaho and Washington have been working in their labs creating a mini garbanzo bean.

Spotted owls have a friend in Washington.Jack Ward Thomas, the U.S. Forest Service biologist who led the studies that produced a policy of reducing timber harvests in national forests to save the bird in the Pacific Northwest, was named to head the agency. Mr. Thomas is the first biologist to get the top job in the agency, which is within the Agriculture Department. He replaces a Reagan appointee, Dale Robertson, whom the Clinton administration forced out.The appointment suggests a serious approach to conservation.

By Dina Cappiello and Dina Cappiello,ALBANY TIMES UNION | February 10, 2002

NEW YORK - When hundreds of firefighters, construction workers and police officers began to comb through the debris from the World Trade Center at a Staten Island landfill, no one expected they would find an ally in the wildlife biologist. But as soon as New York officials reopened the Fresh Kills dump to receive the rubble of the World Trade Center, sea gulls and other scavengers of trash heaps returned - harassing investigators and jeopardizing evidence such as DNA, which can be used to identify victims of the Sept.

Washington. -- Well, they've finally made me an advocate of ruthless welfare reform -- I mean for wiping out total programs without tears. I'm talking about the myriad federal schemes in which outrageous and incredible subsidies are given to the richest people and companies in America.Sharon LaFraniere reported in the Washington Post about the Agriculture Department's Market Promotion Program, which spends hundreds of millions of dollars helping some of the most prosperous businesses in America to hawk their wares overseas.

It's a standoff between fuel, foreign trade and American stomachs. The government predicted yesterday an unprecedented jump in the export of agricultural goods, while demand for corn-based ethanol continues to push prices for soybean and wheat to new records. The rising cost of food has bakers marching on Washington, and has shaped the Democratic presidential primaries' debate about international trade and provoked questions about whether America can continue to be the world's breadbasket.

By Marian Burros and Marian Burros,New York Times News Service | October 7, 1992

In response to harsh criticism in the last few years about the amount of saturated fat in the American diet, many food manufacturers have reluctantly switched from palm and coconut oils and lard to partially hydrogenated vegetable oils made from soybean and corn oils.Now, in a stunning example of revisionist nutrition, new data show these oils -- found in margarine, vegetable shortening and a host of products ranging from doughnuts and pies to cookies and crackers -- may cause heart disease.

WASHINGTON -- One of the Agriculture Department's most durable critics has been named by President Clinton to oversee food stamp and nutrition programs.The nomination of consumer advocate Ellen Haas to be assistant secretary for food and consumer services, which had been fought by some farm groups, suggests a possible new direction for one of the government's largest undertakings.If confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Haas would be responsible for federal nutrition education, school lunch and breakfast programs and the periodically troubled food stamp system.

By Angelia Herrin and Angelia Herrin,Knight-Ridder News Service | September 11, 1991

WASHINGTON -- The latest survey of what Americans eat was so badly bungled that federal agencies may not have the data they need to regulate everything from school lunches and food stamps to food labels and pesticide exposures, a new congressional report concludes.The 1987-1988 Nationwide Food Consumption study, conducted by the Department of Agriculture, did not interview enough people, its design was flawed and it lacked adequate quality controls, according to a report by the General Accounting Office.